


End of the After

by WeDidItKiddo



Category: Figure Skating RPF, Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: angst fest (blame quarantine), briefly features J, inspired by that one emoji she commented on Mo's post, it's whatever, not sure if you can consider this a fix-it, phone call to the past
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:34:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23437003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WeDidItKiddo/pseuds/WeDidItKiddo
Summary: All it takes is one phone call to the past.
Relationships: Morgan Rielly/Tessa Virtue, Scott Moir & Tessa Virtue, Scott Moir/Tessa Virtue
Comments: 6
Kudos: 98





	End of the After

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote down part of this fic on my phone the night Tessa commented the heart eyes emoji on Mo's post and... well, this is what I ended up with. Angst wasn't supposed to happen but most definitely did. Oops?

_London, Ontario_

_February 24, 2020_

****

It's on days like February 24, when a suited-up Morgan appears in Tessa's Instagram feed and makes her forget for a total of three seconds that she’s looking at a picture of her boyfriend, that she likes to take a mental second to appreciate the ways of the universe.

No, really. Who would have thought a mere six months ago that she'd be dating a Leafs player? Before she met Mo, the only knowledge she had of him was what Scott had told her, and even then she hadn't been particularly interested. 

Oh, how the turntables. 

“You wanna do this through an Instagram post? Really?”

She snaps out of her thoughts and squints at the little amalgamation of pixels on her phone that’s barely distinguishable as Morgan. If it wasn’t for his voice, he could’ve fooled anyone.

“I’m not doing anything, I’m just... warming them up to the idea.”

“The idea of us being together.”

“Yes.”

“A.k.a., feeding the rumor mill. I thought you hated that.”

Okay, theoretically, he might be right: feeding the rumor mill might be exactly what she’s doing. But she’s also currently cooking up some dinner that for once in her life might turn out okay, so really, she would be able to do just about anything right now.

Like walking a mile on her hands. Singing the alphabet backwards. Sending a not-so-subtle message into the world that she might be dating a Leafs player.

Really, there are worse things to be mad about.

“Can’t feed the rumor mill with something that isn’t a rumor, though,” she says, pushing her tongue in her cheek.

“Duh, but _they_ don’t know that.”

“Okay, whatever, I’m commenting.” She doubles down over her iPad and ignores both the timer on the oven and the guy on her phone, scrolling through her most recently used emojis until she grins maniacally at the one she wants to use.

“Tess?”

“Hm?” she buzzes, peering at the screen of her phone.

“You were going to comment something anyway, weren’t you?”

“Hell yes,” she says, the smirk on her face broadening when she adds the emoji under his post. Mission complete, whatever the hell the mission was in the first place.

To be quite honest, she doesn’t really know what any of this is. Or how they’re going to go about this, seeing as their one-night-stand-turned-something-more-permanent isn’t something they’re going to be able to hide for much longer.

She might have, at some point in the past. And she did.

But not this time. They’re both too high-profile for that—which is why it wouldn’t make any sense to go about this without consulting a third party.

Except they’ve done exactly that. No third parties this time. No stunts or meticulously constructed stories they want to tell the world. Just a single emoji and a grainy image of him on the screen of her phone.

“Thanks for giving me a heads-up regardless,” Morgan says as he ducks inside the metro station, and the pixels on the screen promptly reduce by half. A few more moments and he will be completely out of signal.

“You’re welcome,” she says, noticing just in time that her vegetarian lasagna is about to burn and turning off the oven. “You’re lucky you have a pretty face to look at, otherwise I’d have sprung this on you. If you keep injuring yourself, I’d brace myself for next time.”

He grins into his phone’s cracked rear camera, bringing it closer to his face. “Next time? What other announcements do you want to make, V?”

“Can’t really call this an announcement, can you?”

“They’ll take it as one, though.”

A tightness shoots up her throat and she grins like a madman, an irrational enthusiasm trying to claw its way out of her. “I know.”

He laughs at the sight of her. “Alright, V. See you in a minute. Please don’t burn that lasagna.”

“You really have zero faith in me, don’t you?”

“Cooking-wise? Try lower than zero.”

“You’re uninvited.”

“I don’t need an invitation to my own place.”

“True.” She chews on one side of her lip, the other side quirking up in a smile. “See you in a little bit.”

“You bet.”

The screen freezes in one of his widest smiles and then he disappears, leaving Tessa standing by her kitchen island with a warmth surging from her head to her toes that has nothing to do with the heat of the oven.

One emoji. He couldn’t have cared less. _She_ couldn’t have cared less.

And it’s fucking liberating as hell.

____________________________

_Orlando, Florida_

****

It takes an inordinate amount of boredom for Scott to open any of his social media apps. In skating life terms, that meant eight-hour overlays in combination with horribly delayed flights. In post-skating life terms, five days of poolside snoozing are enough to tick him off to the point where he whips out his phone and opens Instagram.

Even before his feed has loaded, he regrets resorting to social media for distraction. There was a time when things were different, when he actually felt the need to post about his life, but social media was a different beast ten years ago. He doesn’t particularly like what it has turned into now.

Nevertheless, he starts thumbing through his feed, one arm tucked behind his head on the plastic lounge chair and the buzz of a dozen families enjoying the pool around him. By the time Jackie pats his leg and asks him if he wants another drink, he’s in deep enough to vaguely shake his head no, waving his hand distractedly.

The notification from a buddy pops up at the top of his screen the second Jackie heads to the bar. If it wasn't in all caps, he probably wouldn’t have bothered to open it, but now he shoves his sunglasses up his damp hair.

He knows Matt as an enthusiastic guy, but not caps-worthy enthusiastic.

_RIELLY??_

For a second, he’s nothing but confused. Rielly? What about him? As far as Scott’s aware, there’s no Leafs-related reason good enough for Matt to be texting his name in all caps. Besides, Mo is out for at least another week, so that leaves...

What _does_ that leave?

He scoots up the lounge chair, tossing his sunglasses aside and running his fingers through his returning curls. _Context?_ he replies.

Matt’s answer comes a few seconds later.

_Dude, check his IG._

More than a little confused now, Scott does exactly that, frowning even deeper when he sees his most recent post. It’s a paid promotion, posted about half an hour ago.

Still, no correlation with the all caps message from Matt.

Or...

His breath hitches when he sees her comment, the very first one that appears when he scrolls down. It's instant confirmation, because he knows her well enough to know that she doesn’t take these things lightly – even if to a lot of people it might look like just an emoji.

“Holy shit,” he mutters under his breath, his gaze slowly shifting from his bath towel to the jam-packed pool in front of him.

“What?” Jackie asks, appearing on his right side with a glass of rosé he never asked for.

He takes it from her and puts it down, the sun now at an angle that makes it painful to look up at her. “Tess. Did you know she’s dating a Leafs player?”

“Is she?” Jackie asks, her voice even.

“She commented on Mo’s post, so I guess she is.”

“Haven’t you talked to her lately?”

He almost laughs, never disappointed by her talent for making a question simultaneously sound like an accusation and a warning. “You need anything from our room? I’m quickly going to pop upstairs, I need to get out of the sun for a bit.”

Jackie shrugs, pushing her sunglasses down on her nose. “No, I’ll be right there. We should probably start thinking about dinner anyway.”

He barely registers her last words as he picks up his towel and sunglasses, slapping the towel over his shoulder and weaving his way through the sunbathing family units by the pool. He’s back in the shadows of the main building in no time, the clattering of his slippers on the shiny marble floor reverberating in the reception area.

Two minutes later, he’s standing on his side of the bed staring at the hotel telephone. As he picks it up and lowers himself to the floor next to the bed, the room service menu flutters down from his bedside table, but he doesn’t even bother picking it back up.

His back pressed firmly against the hotel bed, his gaze anchored to a point in the deep blue sky, he dials her number. There must’ve been a part of him that either didn’t realize what he was doing or never expected her to actually pick up, because when he hears the _“Hello?”_ in his ear, his mind goes blank.

As in, completely blank. His jaw falls open and he doesn’t even have as much as a “Hi” in him.

“Who is this?” Tessa’s voice sounds again, and that’s what he realizes he’s using the hotel phone to make this call.

Why is he using the hotel phone?

“Uhm – hey, it’s me. Scott.”

There's momentary confusion on her end, but even through the phone he can tell there’s a smile on her face when she answers.

“Hi! I didn't recognize your number. Are you calling from a different phone?”

“Uhm – no, not exactly. I’m calling from the resort.”

She has no idea he’s at a resort, and he’s a blithering idiot.

“I see. So...” Her voice trails off, waiting for him to fill the blank.

And he has nothing to fill it with. Again. There’s not an ounce of him that wants to ask about Mo anymore. He couldn’t care less if they are a thing or not.

“So,” he echoes, if only to fill the awkward silence.

So.

So, what? They can’t even talk to each other like friends now? He can’t even ask her how she’s been, or at least fill two minutes with blatant small talk?

He closes his eyes and lets the weight of the silence waltz over him, his head knocking back against the mattress. “I read it,” he ends up saying, just to say something. Anything.

“You read what?” she asks.

“A Gentleman in Moscow. Took me about three years, but I finally read it.”

She lets out a single giggle, and it’s everything. “And? What are your thoughts?”

“Honestly?”

“Depends on your answer.”

“You might not like it.”

“Okay, then I want the lie.”

“I loved it. Never read anything that engaging in my life.”

The one giggle turns in a loud, bursting laugh, and he catches himself grinning madly at the ugly blue carpet. His gaze lands on an empty plastic bottle from the night before and he starts twirling it between his fingers.

He twirls it until the laugh in his ear is gone and the grin on his face has faded, and then he crushes the plastic cap between his teeth.

She knows he’s not calling her five months after their last coffee date to talk about books. He knows he’s not calling her to talk about books.

If only he still knew why he _is_ calling her.

“Scott?”

“Hm?”

“Is everything okay? Are you okay?”

He bites down on the inside of his cheek hard enough for his eyes to get teary. “I was going to tell you before the Hall of Fame thing, but I chickened out. I’m sorry you didn’t hear it from me. I just wanted to tell you that.”

The silence in his ear grows heavy, even if it’s only a few seconds long.

“That’s okay, I know you had a lot going on. You don’t need to apologize.”

“I do, though.” He relaxes his jaw, repeatedly pushing his hair out of his face. “I’m sorry. I don’t think I said that enough when we were... you know. I really regret that, and I didn’t want to end this thing with any regrets.”

She breathes in deeply. The sudden and overwhelming feeling to see her face is just another reminder of the fact that they went from a hundred to zero in a matter of a few days, and it’s something he hasn’t quite gotten used to.

“I don’t hold a grudge against you, you know,” she tells him. “For anything that happened. Well, I guess...”

He blinks up at the deep blue sky outside. “What?”

“I guess... If I regret anything, it’s this. Phone calls. It feels weird, not getting to see your face.” 

The choking feeling in his throat loosens up, bringing with it something he would dare to call relief. Maybe she hasn’t gotten used to it, either.

“Couldn’t really blame you if you’re sick of it by now, T.”

“Don’t say that. You know that’s not true.”

Does he, though?

“Alright, fine. In that case, we should schedule one of those face-to-face dates. Remember that coffee place in Montreal where they have those amazing eggs Benedict? We should get eggs and coffee sometime.”

“We definitely should.”

He tilts his head, unable to figure out if that’s a _trying-to-escape-this-conversation_ definitely or _definitely_ definitely. But either of the two beats five months without coffee dates by a long shot, so it doesn't really matter anyway.

“Alright, we’ll try and arrange something soon. Say hi to Mo for me, but don’t tell him I love him. That would be embarrassing.”

She barks out a laugh that gets muffled halfway through, and he has a smile plastered on his face until her voice is back in his ear. 

“He says hi. Says he loves you too. Any other messages you want me to pass on?”

“Yeah, tell him he’s a lucky son of a bitch, and that I’d beat his ass in bubble hockey.”

“We both know I would beat _both_ of your asses in bubble hockey.”

“We do, Virtch. That’s why I was talking about a one-on-one game. He better start preparing himself.”

She giggles again. All things considered, bringing up the Mo subject couldn’t have gone any more smoothly. “He says he will.”

“Good, then it’s a deal.”

“Eggs and coffee first, though.”

“Eggs and coffee first, bubble hockey later. I’ll give you a call when I’m back home.”

The buzz of the hotel door unlocking behind him interrupts their conversation before he can catch her answer, and he hoists himself up by the bed. The rest of Tessa’s sentence is lost on him as Jackie flops down on the bed and beckons for the room service menu.

He gives it to her, wheeling around to the window and scratching the back of his head. It’s then that he realizes Tessa is already gone, her giggles now replaced by the sound of Jackie’s nails tapping over the different dishes as she tries to decide what she wants for dinner.

A muted feeling fills his stomach as he lowers the phone, finally turning around to Jackie. She’s looking up at him, her head tilted to one side.

“Wanna do room service tonight? What do you feel like? Steak? Or something with pasta?”

He puts the phone back on his nightstand, running his hands over his face and letting them fall to his side. His heartbeat is even, the restless hole in his chest that made him pull out his phone earlier filled with a calmness he hasn’t felt in a long time.

All it took was one phone call to the past.

“Can you check if they have eggs Benedict?”

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently I love writing phone calls. I can't help it. He's also going to call her V in all of my TMo fics, just because. :)


End file.
